Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

[Vol]

So it's actually a layer of misdirection, and meant to make Trump people look like belligerent idiots and CNN like unbiased sages?

[Croatsky]

Yes. Fox News has been doing that for years too, by hiring that crazy liberal douchebag I can't remember his name right now.

CNN is simply copying them, but going even more extreme with it.

[RedTracer7]

Problem isn't that they are too friendly with Trump, problem is that they outright pay Trump supporters to defend Trump all the time and to never concede on any points no matter how outrageous it is, just to make CNN's anchors look good.

That's the issue. They're pretty much hiring bullshit artist to make themselves look good.

Campaign surrogates aren't some conspiracy to drum up ratings, they're a legitimate campaign resource intended to represent a candidate and their views when the candidate themselves cannot (or will not) make an appearance. CNN's focus on larger panels just means that you see more of them, and I don't see that as a problem. Their entire existence is to provide a partisan viewpoint so that the opposite side or those uncommitted can respond to or address it.

[DarkStorm]

https://www.facebook.com/TomiLahren/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED&fref=nf

I been watching this girl pretty interesting.

Uuugh...

CNN is paying her to be a Trump shill on their program.
https://twitter.com/gaywonk/status/786926956075855872

? she isnt one of the four?

[Vol]

Not much polling out this weekend. LA Times holds steady at a tie, ABC/Post has Clinton +4 nationally, up from +2 on September 25th, which is in line with the general +5 lead aggregate.

[Croatsky]

Same with 538, no changes.

Polls plus forecast:
-Clinton 48.9% with 322.9 EC
Trump 43.7% with 214.9 EC
-McMullin with 0.1 EC
-Johnson 5.9% with 0.1 EC

Polls only forecast:
-Clinton 49.5% with 339.3 EC
-Trump 42.9% with 198.5 EC
-McMullin with 0.1 EC
-Johnson 6.1% with 0.1 EC

Now-cast( unreliable til a week before Election Day):
-Clinton 49.2% with 340.0 EC
-Trump 42.5% with 197.6 EC
-McMullin with 0.3 EC
-Johnson 6.7% with 0.2 EC

Popular vote for McMullin is not shown at 538 outside Utah.
EC is Electoral College, just in case someone is confused.

[Vol]

Some more polls. NBC/WSJ continue their habit from the primaries of polling Trump low, Florida, Colorado, Nevada all appear to be outside the MOE for Clinton based on these singular polls, and Virginia way up for her, though I severely doubt Trump would only pull 29% of the vote there.

So good news for Clinton, indicates she's probably fairly secure at the moment, but not by much, so the campaigns roll on. Though adding up the numbers, there's still a hefty amount of people who aren't accounted for, around 12-15% from a glance. Those undecided or what?

[Croatsky]

538 posted an article today, suggesting polls are just as likely to underrate Clinton's support as Trump's support.

Issue with polls in these elections is due to how chaotic it is. But with 23 days left until Election Day and many Americans already voting, it looks like polls had stabilized since the first debate.

[DarkStorm]

Though adding up the numbers, there's still a hefty amount of people who aren't accounted for, around 12-15% from a glance. Those undecided or what?

Undecided or don't want to vote.

[Croatsky]

Undecided, polls only take account of likely voters.

[Vol]

A North Carolina GOP office was firebombed overnight: https://www.facebook.com/ncgop/posts/10154577228698834

""The explosive device was thrown through the window of the office, and the words, “Nazi Republicans, leave town or else,” were painted on a nearby building. The news comes less than 25 days before Election Day, as dedicated NCGOP volunteers and activists are canvassing the state and spending long hours getting out the vote and exercising their rights in a free and open democratic society.""

[Croatsky]

I am not looking forward for when elections are over. Violence is guaranteed, no matter who wins.

[TheodoricFriede]

There wont be violence.

You are investing way too much into these elections. Neither of these candidates are all that special. One just happens to be unbelievably crude, and the other incredibly corrupt.

Neither is going to be a two term President.

[Vol]

Wikileaks is currently posting "precommitment" hash keys through their Twitter, labeled "Johny Kerry," "Ecuador," and more.

In laymans, these are so when whatever archive they're connect to are released, you can check if the file has been altered in any way. If so, the key won't "fit" in the archive.

So not a deadman's switch per se, but could be indirectly if they have the archives set to autorelease in case of "problems" and people need to verify.

Also Trump's stopped attacking Paul Ryan on Twitter today to make a comment on the firebombing: "Animals representing Hillary Clinton and Dems in North Carolina just firebombed our office in Orange County because we are winning @NCGOP"

This is going to be a very ugly race to the end.

[Croatsky]

Clinton also made a statement, condemning the attack: "The attack on the Orange County HQ @NCGOP office is horrific and unacceptable. Very grateful that everyone is safe."

[Vol]

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787889195507417088

Little fun fact before I head to work. Assange's internet's been cut by state actors, but the embassy itself appears to be alright, and people are saying he himself is fine.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787889195507417088

Little fun fact before I head to work. Assange's internet's been cut by state actors, but the embassy itself appears to be alright, and people are saying he himself is fine.

I'm sure he'll commit suicide by two gunshots to the back of the head soon enough...

[Croatsky]

Nonsense. Assassinating him would make things worse for the Western governments. He'd just become a martyr and WikiLeaks would continue as ussual.

Also he's wanted for rape charges in Sweden. If those are false, and you believe in conspiracy theories government is out to get him on false accusation, then they'd falsely proclaim him guilty on rape charges. And that's assuming conspiracy theories are right.

[SciFlyBoy]

Had a dream last night where I attended a Trump debate and he talked about his policies and issues in a precise and clear manner. Had to be a dream, right?

[Croatsky]

Had a dream last night where I attended a Trump debate and he talked about his policies and issues in a precise and clear manner. Had to be a dream, right?

I'm pretty sure that was a dream.

[DarkStorm]

Oh look two shitty presidents yet we are force to choose one it must be a dream, oh wait thats real life.

[SciFlyBoy]

Ugh!

[Vol]

First of O'Keefe's videos is out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY

Watch it. The violence at Trump rallies appears to be instigated by the Democrat Party, including the near-riot in Chicago where Trump canceled the event. And more!

[Croatsky]

James O'Keefe kinda has a history of being a massive liar and manipulating videos to meet his agenda and to be controversial for attention.

I mean, look at this shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe#NPR_video_.28spring_2011.29

[Vol]

Oh for sure. But watch the video anyway, because I would like the perspective of someone who'll be more skeptical of the footage than I am.

[Vol]

Wikileaks has confirmed that Ecuador cut Assange's internet access after releasing the Goldman Sachs speech transcripts.

Also the FBI has released more files from their investigation, I've not yet skimmed it.

The polls today are all over the place. Today, one source has Trump +1 in Utah, yesterday, another has him +17.

Hillary maintains a national lead, Rasmussen has her +2 again, Monmouth +12, so they're on the high end along with WSJ. Another has her +8, so the national lead may be pushing past +5 average in their sampling groups.

Florida appears to be on the outer edge of the MOE for her, Ohio's a tossup, NC a tossup, Colorado and Nevada seem slightly for her.

[Croatsky]

OK I only watched half of the video but I have some serious issues.

One of which is they are going strongly into details without any stumbling or re-corrections. And the interviewers is almost guiding them too. It felt like a well rehearsed scripted interview, or well acting. And all of them are showing themselves very publicly, without any fear of reprisal. And they choose to go to James O'Keefe of all people to get interviewed? Why not Fox News?! They would sure as hell loved to publish this and they have some journalistic credibility.

But no, they come to O'Keefe, a hugely controversial activist with history of being a liar and manipulator.

Also you'd think Clinton's staff would make sure to pick supremely loyal people to the party to do this shady stuff and not to leak it, especially in middle of elections campaign.

None of these adds up.

As for things they actually said I can not fact check at all, because I am not that deeply in details of how Democratic party functions. Now how to these organizations function either between one another. So I can not debunk that part, which is why I stopped in middle.
The fact that it looks very fake due to how well rehearsed is for apparently on-spot interviews, as well be interviewers guiding these people more then once on what to say.

Also it's goddamn James O'Keefe, he's utterly untrustworthy. While Fox News, news agency that has some credibility, didn't touch this.

[Croatsky]

On Ohio, Trump campaigning seems to have completely stopped in that state. http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-ohio-turnout-snap-story.html

Meanwhile Clinton campaign started to venture into GOP territory. https://apnews.com/0f9a435727884409951307c1fd443085https://apnews.com/0f9a435727884409951307c1fd443085
Mainly in Missouri and Indiana, because Democratic party have a strong chance to win Senate elections in those states, despite Trump winning strongly as presidential candidate. Campaigning there will mainly help Senate race, but who knows, maybe they could flip to Clinton too. Unlikely, but winning Senate in those states is great enough victory in first place.

[Croatsky]

So apparently that NCGOP HQ that got firebombed had completed absent ballots. That's a Class 1 Felony in state of North Carolina. Nobody but person who completed that ballot or their relative, is allowed to posses the ballot.

Now what is very likely is that NCGOP spokesperson misspoke about this, but if true then that is a serious crime breached by the NCGOP. Either was investigation has to be made about this, along with whoever firebombed that HQ.

Update on this, it looks like NCGOP spokesperson did misspoke. What they actually meant is they have completed absentee voter ballots requests. It is perfectly legal and normal practice to have them, as you pile them up and mail them in a big batch at once.

[DarkStorm]

Big surprise.

[Croatsky]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgicDQHbV3M

Great video on Clinton's and Trump's tax plans.

[Vol]

New O' Keefe video out today, deals with voter fraud. Though it does seem more plausible to be selectively edited, since parts are blatantly part of a theoretical conversation, others are not. So it's more dubious than the last. However, another Democrat implicated has resigned, so O' Keefe's claimed two scalps so far, and gotten his work on national TV. Funnily enough, Obama did a press conference where, at one point, he claimed there was no voter fraud and that Trump was being a whiner. This was immediately followed by the release of the video which strongly implies there is (some) voter fraud.

Obama's half brother, the one in Africa who likes Trump, is being flown in for the debate.

Polls out today are more of the same, Clinton's up about the usual nationally, on the upper end or outside the MOE in a couple states, and she's got NJ and Massachusetts as freebies probably.

I went to see if I could register to vote today, since it was the last day in NJ, but our town hall was closed. The post office had no registration forms, nor a way to print the online ones, and I don't own a printer. So that's that. It seems fitting in this state with crippling taxes and corruption that government ineptitude prevented me from having a say in how government might be run.

Ecuador confirmed they're cutting off Assange's internet access for released info that could affect the US elections. But they will continue to protect him physically.

Trump announced a new policy point, in addition to pushing new rules on how public servants of high office will be restricted from immediately becoming lobbyists, he also says he will push for a constitutional amendment to implement term limits for Congress.

[TheodoricFriede]

Trump announced a new policy point, in addition to pushing new rules on how public servants of high office will be restricted from immediately becoming lobbyists, he also says he will push for a constitutional amendment to implement term limits for Congress.

That alone would make me feel like a vote for him was 100% justified.

[Mobius_118]

At the expense of your ability to live in not poverty, since your job will be shipped overseas.

[TheodoricFriede]

At the expense of your ability to live in not poverty, since your job will be shipped overseas.

I HATE WHEN PEOPLE DONT SHARE MY NARROW VIEW POINT OF THE WORLD HOW DARE YOU NOT HAVE THE OPINION I HAVE IM AM A MAN AND SO MUCH MORE MAN THAN YOU LOOK AT MY DICK

[Mobius_118]

At the expense of your ability to live in not poverty, since your job will be shipped overseas.

I HATE WHEN PEOPLE DONT SHARE MY NARROW VIEW POINT OF THE WORLD HOW DARE YOU NOT HAVE THE OPINION I HAVE IM AM A MAN AND SO MUCH MORE MAN THAN YOU LOOK AT MY DICK

Adorable.

You can be an idiot all you want. I am allowed to call you as such.

[TheodoricFriede]

You can be an idiot all you want. I am allowed to call you as such.

I IS PARODY!

[Mobius_118]

You can be an idiot all you want. I am allowed to call you as such.

I IS PARODY!

No shit, sherlock.

[Croatsky]

Trump announced a new policy point, in addition to pushing new rules on how public servants of high office will be restricted from immediately becoming lobbyists, he also says he will push for a constitutional amendment to implement term limits for Congress.

That alone would make me feel like a vote for him was 100% justified.

Trump talked about that during Primaries, but immediately dropped the issue when GOP's Super-PAC started funding his campaign.

Now that GOP stopped funding his campaign, to focus instead on Senate race, Trump brought back this idea. It is blatantly obvious to be a desperate move, but it's too little too late.

[Vol]

Alright, got my debate beers chilling, lamb in the fridge, and plenty of prosciutto. Trump's campaign slogan going into this last stretch is "Drain the swamp (in Washington)," so I'm expecting a shitshow tonight.

[SciFlyBoy]

Alright, got my debate beers chilling, lamb in the fridge, and plenty of prosciutto. Trump's campaign slogan going into this last stretch is "Drain the swamp (in Washington)," so I'm expecting a shitshow tonight.

What kind of lamb?

[Vol]

Shanks in some sort of mint sauce, I believe.

Polls today are interesting. Nationally, range from +1 Trump to +9 Hillary, with the average roughly +5 Clinton. But the swing states look closer than they've been, other than NH, which is +8 Clinton. Utah, amazingly, according to Emerson is +4 McMullin, which would be a hell of an outcome. In an example of dubious polling, the Arizona Republic poll of Arizona is +5 Clinton, which they achieved by sampling with 168 Republicans, 413 Democrats, and 132 Independents. I'll leave it to statisticians to figure out how to weigh that down to a representative model.

Tonight's the last presidential debate. Trump's expected to go full attack mode, Hillary will probably go hard on undercutting his character and fitness to rule. Starts at 9 PM EST, or, about 4 hours and 18 minutes from now.

[Croatsky]

It would be smart of Hillary to ignore Trump and instead focus on policies. People already seen all the scandals about Trump, no need to go on a repeat. She should win with the policies.

[DarkStorm]

Of course if everyone wants to ignore the wikileaks.

[Vol]

What a debate! A shame I picked the Infowars stream, because Alex Jones would not shut the fuck up.

As for who won...

It was...

Whoever you wanted to win. Won't move the needle on the polls. Enjoy!

[Croatsky]

Vol, that's a pretty cheap answer. Also why InfoWars stream, you have PBS that had no commentary at all during the debate.

But anyway, Clinton wiped the floor with Trump. Even Republicans agree that this was a disastrous performance from Trump, much worse from 1st debate. Clinton just baited him so perfectly and he always took the bait.

She literary managed to segway discussion on immigration on Russia and Trump, which was the issue people love him for, just followed her along and got himself buried.

I regret not watching this debate live, Hillary did what I expected her to do in 2nd debate. This was the bloodbath I had hoped for and it came. And it was glorious.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Well we can still hold out hope that the virgin sacrifices she's been doing to stay alive stop working.

Or that He-Man will get off his ass and drive Skeletor away.

[DarkStorm]

Gonna have to murder kittens as a offering to prevent the hell from winning at this point.

[Vol]

I didn't want to tacitly support any of the bigger streams and RSBN wasn't covering the debate proper. Though apparently Infowars had a non-commentary stream that I only became aware of towards the end when Alex Jones was yelling at the people in chat asking him to shut up.

But anyway, Trump wiped the floor with Clinton. Even Democrats agree that this was a disastrous performance from Clinton, much worse from the 2nd debate. Trump just baited her so perfectly and she always took the bait.

And by that, I mean you saw what you wanted to see. That's how this works. Scott Adams, Dilbert guy, says she won from a persuasion POV because she stuck to painting Trump as a hateful monster who's unqualified to run. The Luntz focus group say Trump won, favoring him heavily when he talked about trade and Clinton's problems.

The online polls were, as you can imagine, spammed heavily by both sides. So pick the one you like the most and claim it's the most true. The MSM is running with the CNN/ORC poll that Hillary won with 52% or so.

As for what I personally thought, it was a midway point between the first and the second. Trump's not a debater, but he did alright, though I wished he could have been more aggressive with all the recent leaks. Clinton was prepared, the professional, though she had some fire in her when on a few topics. I didn't feel a real knockout either way, hence why I don't think it will budge the polls much, especially since there's drop off in viewership with every debate.

For policy, since that's the topic basically ignored in lieu of character attacks and meta-analysis, no-fly zones in Syria is ridiculous, I'm not going to go die fighting Russia over our retarded Middle East Meddling plan. I don't know how raising the taxes on the rich to pay for everything, and also lots of new stuff, will work when they can so easily leave or outsource, which they've been doing for decades now. Seems like it would fuck over companies big enough to have a lot of revenue, but not so big they can circumvent the tax law or move overseas, like the printing press factory I did a small job for the other month.

Trump's "Jobs, jobs, jobs" plan by slashing taxes and rejiggering trade deals and threatening companies with tariffs sounds fine by me, but if it doesn't work or he can't get it implemented, we're in for some rough times. Though I have almost no assets to lose, another recession would mean very little to me. Plus companies could refuse to play ball and keep their money and factories overseas despite it all, since it's not like China couldn't put the screws to outsourcers if they thought about moving back to the USA.

[Vol]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/22/calibration-error-changes-gop-votes-to-dem-in-illinois-county.html

Whoopsidoodle! What a silly mistake.

But more seriously, it'd really be in the best interest of everyone for voting to not be entirely digital and ran by companies that donate to political parties. For that whole 'faith in the process' thing.

Nevermind, it's from 2014. Fucking timestamps, I never read them.